Following the Real Estate Money

We recently discussed fixed asset investment and the downturn in that specific sector. The flip side of FAI is the popularity, or seeming popularity of real estate. We talk about it a lot, because real estate is largely viewed in China as a confident smart investment for banks and individual investors alike. Real estate funding growth as seen in the figure below illustrates the value of real estate. Self-funding increased to over 10%. We take this to mean investors are forgoing banks and financial institutions for property. Whether investors are avoiding traditional financing or do not qualify is not evident, but we do believe there is positive upward trend for self-financing. However, it is worth noting that we are skeptical that this is not disguised debt growth and it would represent a major shift if true.